Dog Days
by Dumbledore-The-Phoenix
Summary: Takes place at the end of Order of the Phoenix, right after Harry's conversation with Luna. Harry has skipped the End of Term feast, and Ron has an idea to take Harry's mind off things.


A/N: This story takes place at the end of _Order of the Phoenix_ , on the night of the End of Term feast, just after Harry speaks with Nearly Headless Nick and Luna. This is just supposed to be a lost moment from canon, so you can ship whomever you like, but this is just intended as a one-shot friendship appreciation story. It flew into my head, almost fully formed, near midnight, and I wrote 2/3 of it immediately, before my eyes started falling closed more often than they were open.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Dog Days

As Harry parted ways with Luna, he tried to focus his mind on her parting sentiment. " _You heard them, just behind the veil, didn't you? …They were just lurking out of sight, that's all."_ He had heard them, yes. He had been half prepared to walk through the veil himself, just to hear their whispers with clarity. Would Sirius still have passed through, if Harry had already done so? Would they be together now, in that spaceless realm within the veil?

Harry's spirits, which had lifted slightly while speaking with Luna, fell steadily again as he ascended the staircases to Gryffindor tower. The halls were deserted now. The Fat Lady narrowed her eyes as he approached, but before she could scold him again for missing the feast, he called, "Nostos," and she swung open with a grim huff of consternation. The common room was empty as well. He considered sinking into an armchair by the fire and waiting for Ron and Hermione to return from the feast, but he found that he could not bear the thought of being spotted there alone. After what was likely a conspicuous absence from the feast, he loathed the idea of being, in his solitude, conspicuously present. He felt acutely aware of earth's gravitational pull, as he trudged up the stairs to the sixth-year boys' dormitory.

Hedwig blinked sleepily and gave a faint chirrup. Harry stroked her feathers gently once. "I won't have much work for you next year," he said, and she preened her feathers.

Harry's remaining unpacked belongings lay scattered about his bed, as he had left them in his urgent pursuit of Nearly Headless Nick. Now, he returned to his task with the sole intention of fitting them in the trunk without breaking them on impact. The pieces of broken mirror kept glinting at him in the lamplight, and he worked with an unprecedented focus that did not quite block out the taut weight of grief as it pressed in on him.

He heard a distant hum of laughter and voices from the common room as he finally slid the latch on his trunk, and he felt an irresistible urge to climb into the now blessedly clear bed and wrench the curtains closed. Not intending to deny himself this indulgence, Harry sat down on the bed, but as he moved to draw the curtains, the door to the room swung open, and Ron burst through, flushed and breathing heavily.

"Quidditch," he gasped, and Harry registered that this was comical, but he could not muster a grin.

"'Scuse me?" he said.

"Umbridge is gone," said Ron, who now strode toward his dresser, loosening the tie at his neck. "Your Quidditch ban is over, and we're leaving tomorrow. We should go fly for a bit."

Harry stared at him. He thought of his Firebolt, already shrunk and wedged in a corner of his trunk. "Ron, it's almost curfew—"

"We've got plenty of time! And I'm a Prefect. And we can bring your cloak, if we want to sneak back in—"

"And it's going to get dark—"

"We'll watch the sunset! And we can make light with these," said Ron, waving his wand a little randomly for emphasis and causing a stream of sparks to fly out the end.

Harry ran a hand through his hair, which lay unusually flat today, and tried to work out a desirable outcome. Sirius had always encouraged breaking school rules in the spirit of mischief. He had also given Harry his Firebolt, which he had been banned from flying for months, and which had only been returned to him that morning. It would be nice to fly again….

Before he could formulate a response, Ron was changing quickly into a t-shirt and shorts and urging Harry to do the same. "No more arguing," he said, and Harry complied.

The sun was already hanging low in the clouds, as Harry and Ron crossed the grounds toward the pitch. The sky around it had turned a glowing shade of coral that was reflected in the lake as they strode past. Ron's gait was naturally a bit longer than Harry's, and Harry found that he had to concentrate to keep from lagging behind, as his breath caught slightly at the sight of the beautiful home he would so soon have to leave. Ron had kept up a steady stream of information about the feast, featuring a rather unnecessarily detailed description of which of the dishes had been the most popular at the Gryffindor table. He glanced at Harry occasionally, as if to encourage comment, but otherwise allowed him his silence, and grew quiet himself as they entered the pitch.

"I think there's a practice snitch in the locker room," said Harry. "We probably only have time for one round, at the most. The practice snitch should come back to the pitch after 20 minutes. You okay with seeking?"

"Yeah, sure," said Ron. "I'll go grab it."

Harry would ordinarily have accompanied Ron, but his feet felt rooted to the spot. He wondered grimly whether the broom could unglue his feet from the ground. He wanted to roll his eyes at his own melodrama, but even that seemed more effort than it was worth.

Ron emerged from the locker room and held the snitch out for Harry to see. "I'm just gonna release it now," he said. "One, two, three, fetch!" And the snitch tore off into the night.

Harry was in the air, reflexively, before he could think twice about it, and his eyes scanned the horizon for the tiny golden ball. The word _fetch_ thrummed through him as his eyes passed over the stands, where the dog Sirius had once come to watch him play, before he had fallen from his broom in response to the dementors. Harry thought he could almost feel them now; an unseasonably chilly breeze ruffled his hair, and he certainly felt close to despair, though he did not hear his mother's voice.

He continued to scan the area for the snitch and watched as Ron did the same, at the opposite end of the pitch. Harry wondered what McGonagall would say if she saw them at this—it seemed quite unlikely that she would approve.

Suddenly, Harry spotted movement near ground level at the edge of the pitch, and he instinctively tore off in pursuit of it, but within seconds, he had observed that it was not the snitch, but rather a shaggy black dog. Heart pounding now, Harry redoubled his efforts, entering a steep dive, as Ron shouted in the distance.

The dog had noticed him, and it was running now, darting in and out of sight as Harry raced toward the ground. Drawing parallel to the dog, Harry leapt from the broom, but the dog continued to run, and Harry could not quite match its agility on foot. He swore as the dog swerved into the bushes outside the Greenhouses, but as he approached them, he slid to his knees.

"Sirius?" he called, his voice gentle and tinged with sudden doubt. Ron appeared behind him, suddenly, panting and leaning a hand on Harry's shoulder for support.

"Blimey, Harry, what the bloody—"

The dog peered out from the bush and then started tentatively toward Harry's outstretched hand, and as it appeared in full, Harry slumped.

"I thought…" said Harry, "just for a second… but it's too small, and the eyes are wrong." Ron's hand tightened on Harry's shoulder, and Harry stood, blinking rapidly.

He felt as though his chest were constricting, and he suddenly wished nothing more than to be back in their dormitory, the curtains on his four-poster bed drawn, airtight. He heard Ron expel a breath in a great _whoosh_ , beside him. He closed his eyes, ran both hands again through his hair, which was now sticking in every direction but up, and stood perfectly frozen.

Harry's initial response, when Ron positioned himself in front of Harry and placed his long-fingered hand firmly but gently on Harry's back, the other hand moving to the back of his head, was to stiffen in panic. He could not hold it together like this, was having enough trouble doing so without this gesture of support from his oldest friend, whom he did not want to see him fall apart. This seemed incredibly important: that Ron, in particular, should not witness his raw grief. The two must be kept separate, or they may grow together, and Harry needed a Ron who made him laugh, effortlessly. Not this.

As the arms around him tightened, so too did Harry's posture, but the constriction in his chest continued to worsen. He clenched his eyes shut against the shoulder now before them, clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached, but he returned the pressure of the embrace as well.

"It's all right, mate," said Ron. "I've got you."

And Harry felt himself let go, not certain whether he had chosen to do so or not, in the end. He shuddered in silence, but for the occasional gasp for air. His swirling emotions, raw anguish and surprise at his own confusing, desperate certainty about the dog, kept pulling him out of his awareness of the moment. The awful constricting feeling seemed to morph intermittently into a warm gratitude at being held, at the permission to free the hot tears, of which there seemed to be an endless supply. It all seemed impossible.

As the world darkened around them, Harry fought for control, reluctant to draw back until he felt he could stem the flow of tears. When he thought he might manage it, and the cover of night had fallen around them, he pulled back and glanced around the area.

"Where did the dog go?" he asked.

"Ran off a while ago," said Ron. "Probably belongs to someone in Hogsmeade."

Harry, who had asked primarily to stave off any conversation more directly linked to the unusual situation in which they had found themselves, felt a small wrench of abandonment at this news, but he merely swallowed once and then nodded.

"Do you have the snitch?" he asked. Ron seemed to be scrutinizing Harry in a way that felt uncomfortably reminiscent of Hermione, but he grinned at the question and pulled the dormant ball out of his pocket, holding it out for Harry to see.

"Only time I'll ever catch it before you," he said, before adding, a bit sheepishly, "—it flew over a few minutes ago and just sort of hovered next to my face until I grabbed it."

A corner of Harry's mouth lifted in amusement at this admission. "Probably really pleased with itself," he said. He glanced up at the sky, where a smattering of stars had begun to glitter. One shone brighter than the rest, and Harry crossed his arms against the chill of the night.

"S'pose we should get inside, eh?" said Ron, looking up as well.

"Yeah, s'pose so," agreed Harry. He pulled the shrunken Invisibility Cloak out of his pocket, tapping it with his wand to return it to its usual dimensions. Ron cast a Disillusionment Charm on both of them, and Harry shivered at the sensation of cold trickling down from his head to his spine. Blindly, both as good as invisible in the darkness now, Harry threw the cloak over Ron and himself.

Broomsticks returned to packable size, they made their way back across the grounds toward the castle. Too tall to fit easily under the cloak, they relied upon the Disillusionment charm to hide their feet from any possible onlookers. Ron had an arm cast across Harry's shoulders, possibly for the purpose of better coordinating their movement, but Harry drew comfort from it, all the same.

At the portrait of the Fat Lady, who grumbled about miscreants as they gave her the password, Harry removed the cloak, but they maintained the Disillusionment charm as they clambered into the common room. The students who remained were all quite occupied, casting harried glances around for missing items and hiding pets, and no one noticed the late entry of two invisible students.

Outside the sixth-year boys' dormitory, Ron paused, and Harry prepared himself for the hot trickling sensation that accompanied the end of a Disillusionment charm, but instead, he found himself drawn into a fierce hug. "Might as well get in one more while we're invisible," Ron said, and Harry laughed, needing this, but grateful at the implication that there had been no permanent shift in the nature of their friendship.

They pulled apart, and Harry felt the Disillusionment charm trickle away. A moment later, Ron stood before him, visible again.

"Thanks, Ron," Harry said, meeting Ron's eyes for a moment before looking quickly back down.

"Hey," said Ron, and Harry forced himself to resume eye contact. "Any time," Ron said, with gentle conviction. He opened the dormitory door, revealing Neville, Seamus, and Dean in varying degrees of packing-related panic. Seamus was aiming a steady string of random countercharms at his Kenmare Kestrals poster, which he seemed to have fastened to the wall with an unusual spell. Dean was fishing colored pencils out of the bottom of his trunk, sharpening them individually, and then placing them in a large tin box. Neville appeared to be giving a pep talk to his Mimbulus mimbletonia, as Trevor croaked at it with something like disdain.

"Now, off to bed with you," Ron said loudly to Harry, as they crossed to their individual slices of the round dormitory. " _Some_ of us still have packing to do." Ron picked up a chocolate frog from a small collection on his bed and chucked it at Harry, who caught it easily.

He sat on the bed and opened it immediately, letting the frog jump once before catching it and biting off its head. Celestina Warbeck gazed at him from the card in the wrapping, and Harry tossed it to Ron with a flick of his wrist, so that the card hit him in the ribs with a soft _thwack._

"Hey!" Ron yelled, but he was smiling, and Harry laughed.

"Give it to your mum from me, if you already have her," said Harry.

"Prat," muttered Ron.

"Can't hear you," said Harry. "I am all packed up and fast asleep."

Ron's groan mingled with those of Seamus', Neville's, and Dean's, and Harry smiled a bit, as he relaxed into his pillows and closed the curtains around his bed at last. That Sirius was gone was as unacceptable as it was unfair, and Harry knew that he would always miss the man terribly. But for the moment, he allowed himself to remember his gratitude for the warm companionship of his friends, and he resolved to push through, to keep his head on straight, for them. It was what Sirius would have wanted.

*I do not think a "practice snitch" is a canon thing, so I rolled with it and gave it rules to fit my story. I'm also not sure Harry and Ron should have been able to get back into the castle after curfew, but I feared if I wrote in an explanation, it might detract from the mood of the story. Harry is in the textbook definition of denial on this night, as he tries first the two-way mirror and then Nearly Headless Nick to find a way to speak to Sirius again, so I thought this was in keeping with his character on this particular night. I also think Harry's and Ron's friendship is at a high point in their sixth year, and I like to think that Ron was a particularly good friend to Harry during this time.


End file.
